The Last Bolshevik

Le tombeau d'Alexandre

France, Finland, 1993

Documentary, Biography, History

Synopsis

Based on the life and work of the Russian film director Alexander Medvedkin, The Last Bolshevik is a tribute from one filmmaker to another. The film captures the commitment, energy, struggles, illusions and disillusions of a believing but never naïve Bolshevik.

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The Last Bolshevik Directed by Chris Marker

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Awards & Festivals

Berlin International Film Festival

1994

Locarno International Film Festival

1993

International Film Festival Rotterdam

1994

Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente

2005

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Cast & Crew

Critics reviews

Filled with sly jokes at the expense of the censors’ innate absurdities, this story can nonetheless only be a tragedy, and only the director’s haunting sci-fi photoplay, La jétée, exceeds it for emotional heft.

Jake Cole

June 26, 2015

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The incredibly rich palette of textures, lights, and colors Marker discovers in video in Last Bolshevik sets new standards for the medium’s beauty and expressiveness. It’s a contentious essay on the history of Soviet cinema and the Soviet Union itself; beyond that it’s a multifaceted self-portrait and autocritique by Marker of what it has meant to be a committed leftist for most of this century. The subject is what it meant to be a communist — and what it means to think about communism today.

Jonathan Rosenbaum

January 21, 1994

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What are people saying?

El Biffo's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
El Biffo

It is very hard to just say a few words about an important film by the most creative documentary film maker that ever lived, Chris Marker. This film is of great interest to anyone interested in Soviet history or cinema, but like any of Marker's "documentaries", It is so much more, it sends me running to look up historical notes and see films he references; I've seen HAPPINESS, now I must see all of Medvedkin's work!
January 24, 2019 17:43
- 8
- 1
tidal waif's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
tidal waif

it takes the firm mind of a Marker to show how fictional images and fake constructed documents contaminate our image of history; how carefully built context precedes and massively determines the meaning of "autonomous" events (like those Queen lyrics, which change meaning when put in German by Laibach, showing the way a historical context can make the same text cover in a dramatically different ideological coccoon,
January 24, 2019 17:34
- 5
- 11
PolarisDiB's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
PolarisDiB

A fascinating montage documentary with Soviet filmmaker Alexandr Medvedkin in the center of an expose of the cinematic apparatus as 'shadow of the kingdom' in the middle of the 'kingdom of the shadows' which was the years of Russian history from 1900 to 1989. -- PolarisDiB
January 24, 2019 17:11
- 2
- 1
Alex Ander 0's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
Alex Ander 0

"Tu te souviens comme tu avais pleuré en découvrant que deux images ensemble pouvaient prendre sens ? Aujourd’hui, la télévision inonde le monde entier d’images dépourvues de sens, et personne ne pleure..." Brilliant film, I've since been imagining Chris Marker and Moondog in Times Square hearing the announcement of Stalin's death.
September 21, 2015 12:13
- 1
- 0
Justin Vicari's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
Justin Vicari

Marker is right on target when he says that the ideal of a better world died with the U.S.S.R. even though that nation had long since become dystopian. Somewhat like Godard, Marker is a champion of filmmakers: sometimes I felt as if history was only something that helped or harmed men like Vertov and Medvedkin. Nonetheless, it's a stunning kaleidoscope of images and ideas, and yes the cat is adorable as all getout.
August 12, 2013 17:45
- 0
- 2
petit astronaute's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
petit astronaute

DCP (à partir de l'original en Betacam). 4,3
June 14, 2018 09:55
- 0
- 0
FISCHER's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
FISCHER

Remarquablement intelligent et documenté... www.cinefiches.com
April 15, 2017 16:35
- 0
- 0
Nachtreich's rating of the film The Last Bolshevik
Nachtreich

"People won't pay for art: they want entertainment."
February 13, 2017 23:56
- 1
- 0